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One of the more engrossing wildlife struggles you can watch is a salmon swimming upstream, flickering through the torrent with everything it has, only to lose strength for a second — and all its progress as it gets swept backward. That’s part of the natural cycle for salmon, but when dams block the waterway and they must use a fish ladder, they often opt out for reasons we don’t understand. As reported by Active NorCal, we then lose out on that population that won’t spawn and all the related benefits of nutrients these fish bring to the upstream ecosystem. Dams aren’t always that great (hence the swear), and across the country people are rethinking them as their ‘contracts expire.’ One such dam on the Eel River isn’t going to be renewed, which will result in the longest free-flowing river in California.
The Potter Valley Project on the Eel River had been tied with Pacific Gas & Electric (the folks behind some of the state’s more dramatic firestorms), but when the 50-year lease expired last week, PG&E elected not to renew it. After a lengthy decommissioning that is projected to take several years, the Eel will be restored — and hopefully its robust salmon population will be, too.
A percentage of Eel water is piped over to the Russian River to be used by farmers and vintners, so agreements will have to be reached to make sure no one’s left high and dry.
Dams seem to be becoming an obsolete bit of infrastructure, as they prevent the natural flush of sediments throughout the system and interrupt wildlife habitats. Not all of them can be removed; some cities would be underwater if so. But a thoughtful reevaluation is called for to improve water quality and the lives of all of us who depend on that source, including some endangered fish species. California, home to 1,000 dams, including some that are more than 100 years old, can perhaps lead the way in determining better ways to ... go with the flow.